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Key Vote YES on Stopping the IRS Assault on Free Speech

As one of our millions of FreedomWorks members nationwide, I urge you to contact your representative and ask that he or she vote YES on the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, H.R. 3865. Sponsored by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), this bill would stop (for a year) the IRS from finalizing regulations which would stifle the free speech of c4 non-profit organizations.

Congressman Camp’s legislation would prevent the IRS – for one year – from finalizing a proposed regulation that would, if enacted, prevent 501(c)4 non-profit groups from exercising even basic elements of political speech. This includes non-partisan candidate forums, voter registration or get-out-the-vote efforts, or even mentioning any candidate for political office within two months of an election.

This regulation would hurt grassroots activism on both sides of the ideological spectrum, but would be particularly devastating to the thousands of tea party, 9/12, and other liberty-minded grassroots groups – the same organizations which have been targeted for harassment by the IRS. The proposed regulation is an arbitrary assault on the free speech of just those groups which the IRS finds politically inconvenient – and sets a precedent for them to apply the same restrictions to other groups of Americans as well.

For these reasons, I urge you to call your representative and ask him or her to vote YES on the Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act, H.R. 3865. We will count their vote as a KEY VOTE when calculating FreedomWorks’ Economic Freedom Scorecard for 2014. The Scorecard is used to determine eligibility for the FreedomFighter Award, which recognizes Members of Congress who consistently vote to support economic freedom.

In a stunning abuse of power, the IRS has been targeting the donors to conservative political organizations for audits, according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon. The documents released via a Freedom of Information Act request as part of an investigation by Judicial Watch show that the agency specifically singled out individuals who gave to groups with words and phrases like "tea party" in their name for audits.

While we may not agree with all speech we come across, it is important for liberty-minded individuals to defend all constitutionally protected speech. If we do not protect speech that we may not agree with, or that is of limited importance to us, there will be fewer people willing to defend speech that we care deeply about. Also, once the Supreme Court rules some speech can be restricted and still withstand constitutional scrutiny, it becomes easier for the Court to rule other speech can be restricted as well.

After being estranged from his wife and fired from his job, Anthony Elonis began posting a series of disturbing Facebook statuses that spoke of harming and killing his ex-wife, initiating “the most heinous school-shooting ever imagined,” and blowing up FBI agents.

There is no more powerful of a tool in today's political discourse than the Internet. It has decentralized the flow of information by allowing Americans to do their own research on the issues concerning them and their families as well as comparing candidates who are running for local, state, and federal office. Democrats on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), however, are looking to, for the first time, regulate online political speech.

Senate Democrats recently tried to push through a constitutional amendment that would have repealed free speech protections in the First Amendment, making Congress the sole arbiter of what is and isn't political speech. Thankfully, this effort, backed by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) failed to get the two-thirds needed for a constitutional majority, killing the proposed amendment for the remainder of the 113th Congress.

As one of our over 6.6 million FreedomWorks activists nationwide, I urge you to contact your senators and ask them to vote NO on S.J. Res. 19, a proposed Constitutional amendment that would enshrine into law the government’s ability to restrict political free speech. Sponsored by Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and co-sponsored by 48 of his colleagues, this amendment would take the unprecedented step of amending Americans’ First Amendment rights.

Slowly making its way through the Senate without too much notice is a joint resolution (S.J.Res. 19), sponsored by Tom Udall and enjoying the vocal support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that would rewrite the founding document of our country in ways never before imagined.

Political speech has been winning a number of incremental victories in recent years, from the 2010 Citizens United decision that allowed SuperPACs to spend money on elections, to the ruling earlier this year that struck down the overall cap on political donations.